Artists

photo by Beau Saunders

Choreographer/Artistic Director

'Bessie' award winning dancer, choreographer and teacher, Gerald Caselwas born in the Philippines and raised in California where he began dancing in public school. He received a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School in 1991 and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2007 assisted by a fellowship from the Advanced Opportunity Program. His choreographic work complicates and provokes questions surrounding colonialism, cultural amnesia, whiteness and privilege, and the tensions between the invisible/perceived/obvious structures of power. As a teacher, he employs somatics as a way to amplify knowledge production through movement and to identify and undo coded systems of dance training that privilege Eurocentric canons and aesthetics.

Gerald has danced in the companies of Michael Clark, Sungsoo Ahn, Stanley Love, Zvi Gotheiner, Russell Dumas, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Lar Lubovitch and Stephen Petronio where he was a company member from 1991-1998 and 2001-2005. He served as Stephen Petronio Company’s Assistant Director and Director of Education. Casel has created choreography for The Barnard Project, New York University’s Second Avenue Dance Company, Da Da Dance Projects and The X Factor Dance Company of Scotland.

Gerald is associate professor of dance and Associate Chair of Theater Arts at University of California, Santa Cruz where he was recently awarded a Hellman Fellowship. He has regularly taught in New York at Dance New Amsterdam and Movement Research as well as a guest at Impuls Tanz and the School for Modern Dance in Denmark. He has been on faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, Marymount Manhattan College, Barnard College, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and most recently as a full-time faculty member at NYU Tisch School of the Arts where he received the David Payne-Carter Award for Teaching Excellence. He has been Artist-in-Residence at Movement Research, Dance New Amsterdam and The Yard. He has received grants from the Asian American Arts Alliance, CA$H, Lighting Artists in Dance, CHIME at 10 in the Bay Area, Museum of Art and History Santa Cruz, Arts Council Santa Cruz County, and a New Work Award at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He served on the New York State Council on the Arts’ Dance Panel 2007-2010.

In 2010-2011 he was a Professor of Contemporary Dance at Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden (Germany) and also taught Contemporary Dance at the San Francisco Ballet Summer Program. He has also been a visiting professor at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Assistant Professor at Cal State Long Beach.

DANCERS

Originally from Northern California, Arletta Anderson received her degree in dance from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Upon graduating, she worked with various choreographers including Holly Johnston/Ledges and Bones, Kevin Williamson, Kate Hutter/LACDC, Kindra Windish and Rebecca Pappas/Pappas and Dancers. Arletta spent three years in New York where she danced with Esme Boyce, Molly Heller and was a part of Willi Dorner’s Bodies in Urban Spaces project. Since relocating to the Bay Area in summer 2013, Arletta has had the opportunity to work with GERALDCASELDANCE and continues to teach yoga throughout the city.

Kristen Bell, a native of New Jersey, received her early dance training at the School of American Ballet and later at Princeton University while earning her BA in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Kristen continued her studies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, from which she received her MFA in Dance. In New York, she has performed with TAKE Dance, American Repertory Ballet, Kazuko Hirabayashi Dance Theater, Dishman + Co., and Riedel Dance Theater. Since relocating to the Bay Area, Kristen continues to collaborate with JenEd Productions and Skybetter & Associates, where she is the rehearsal director. She enjoys teaching, making dances, and facilitating stress/reactivity training workshops. Kristen is grateful to be working with GERALDCASELDANCE.

Christina Briggs holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she was a Visiting Assistant Professor 2010-2014. Christina has worked with a variety of choreographers in New York, including Carrie Ahern, Pat Cremins, and Susan Osberg. In 2000 she joined Heidi Latsky Dance, performing and serving as Rehearsal Director. She has performed for children nationwide with the Hudson Vagabond Puppets, where she was also the Rehearsal Director. She has been on the faculty in the Dance Department at Hofstra University and Queens College and taught at the Joffrey Jazz & Contemporary Summer Intensive. Christina’s choreography has been performed in New York City at Clark Studio Theater at Lincoln Center, Dixon Place, Joyce SoHo, Pace University, St. Mark’s Church and University Settlement, as well as in Atlanta, Boulder, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, New Orleans and Richmond.

Rebecca Chaleff is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University. She has had the pleasure of performing with Pat Catterson, Douglas Dunn and Dancers, and the Merce Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group, among others, and is currently a member of Molissa Fenley and Company. Rebecca began dancing with GERALDCASELDANCE in 2013.

Peiling Kao was born in Taipei, Taiwan, graduated from Taipei National University of the Arts in 1996 with a BFA in Dance, and worked as a full-time teacher at Cloud Gate Dance School in Taiwan. In 2007, Peiling was awarded the Taiwan-England artists’ residency, hosted by the Independent Dance based at Siobhan Davis Studios in London; in 2010, Peiling finished her MFA at Mills College, receiving an E.L Wiegand Foundation Award for excellence in performance and choreography. In 2012,Peiling awarded Isadora Duncan Dance Awards in category of Outstanding Achievement in Performance for the collaborative work entitled Terra Incognita: Revisited, and her work Imprint got nominated for Izzies’s Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design in 2013. Peiling was an Artist in Residency (AIR) at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in the Fall 2012. Since moving to the US, Peiling has been teaching at Mills College, LINES Ballet BFA program at Dominican University of California, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, RoCo Dance, Taiwanese American Center, and was a guest artist at Austin Peay State University and Chinese American International School. Peiling’s work has been presented in Taipei, Oakland (CA), San Francisco (CA), Clarksville (TN), and London. www.peilingkaodances.com

Na-ye Kim was born in Seoul, Korea. She trained in the UK at The Royal Ballet School, and then received her BA (Hons) in Dance Education at Durham University. In 2006 she graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography. She has performed nationally and internationally with Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Hell’s Kitchen Dance. Na-ye has worked for Karole Armitage, Bill Young, Kyle Abraham, Bridget L. Moore and Gabriel Forestieri as a freelance dancer in New York and continuously works with GERALDCASELDANCE. She continued her studies at Seoul National University and received a PhD in 2013 in Dance education. She is currently a full-time lecturer at Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, School of Dance and the Artistic Director to her project company Na-ye Kim Movement Collective/NKMC.

Kevin Lopez received a BFA in Dance from CSU Long Beach, where he has danced for Keith Johnson, Gerald Casel, and Bill T. Jones. He has performed with Joe Goode Performance Group and Intersect Dance Theatre. He recently presented his solo show, Things I’ve Been Told in San Francisco where he currently resides.

Tara McArthur began her dance training in her hometown of Nevada City, California. She holds a BFA in Dance from California State University Long Beach, where she went on to join the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City, UT. While in Utah, she was also a part of the Alwin Nikolais Centennial Celebration, performing his works across the U.S., France, and Italy. Since moving to San Francisco she has worked with Hope Mohr Dance, Risa Jaroslow & Dancers, Gerald Casel Dance Company, Amy Foley, Rogelio Lopez Garcia, NOW I.D., and Keith Johnson Dancers.

Karla Quintero is an Izzie Award winning dancer based in the Bay Area, currently performing with GERALDCASELDANCE, Hope Mohr Dance and Aura Fischbeck Dance. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance from the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance and a BA in Urban Studies from Barnard College.

COLLABORATORS

Tim Russell was raised in a house filled with the sounds of recreational musicians. From that nurturing experience, he was drawn to music as a way of interacting with the world. Tim began his professional career as a musician at fifteen, playing drums in rock bands around the Chicago suburbs. His passion for music and percussion deepened as he attended the University of Wisconsin, where he eventually graduated with a BM in percussion performance. Tim was immersed in the world of Contemporary Movement via accompanying classes and composing music at the University of Wisconsin Dance Program, an environment that encouraged his experimental and collaborative spirit. While in Madison, he maintained a active performing schedule, managed a private teaching studio and composed music for choreographers. Tim’s work with choreographers such as Jin Wen Yu, Li Chiao Ping, Kate Corby, Cycropia Aerial Dance, Luc Vanier, Kun Yang Lin, and Holly Johnston has brought his music all across the country from the Fab! festival in New York City to CounterPULSE! in San Francisco. He currently resides in Oakland, where he is working on hims MFA from Mills College.

Aron Altmark is a CalArts Alumni and first fell in love with light attending fine arts high school and through a camera lens. His photographer father taught him how to see light in the world around him and use it to create art at an early age, starting a lifelong obsession. This took him from his native Alabama all over the nation, with stops in Orlando, Las Vegas, Colorado, and Los Angeles. His first endeavors were in theatre and dance lighting before moving to Las Vegas and working in concert and nightlife, after which he moved to Los Angeles to work as a software specialist for the MA Lighting product line at A.C.T Lighting. During this time, he also produced independent light art / creative code works (Paint the Town Red) and freelanced as a programmer on various projects (Krewella 2013 Tour) before joining SJ Lighting in 2013. Aron worked alongside SJ Lighting owner and principal designer Stephen Lieberman programming and assisting with designs on large-scale EDM festivals (EDC, Paradiso, Ultra Music Festivals) as well as working on SJ Lighting’s new nightclub installations all over the country.

Since establishing Visual Endeavors, Aron has been working on projects across the spectrum of live entertainment — from designing concert experiences for artists including Logic (2017 Everybody's Tour), Tiesto (2016 World Tour), Dillon Francis (HARD Summer 2015-16, IDGAFOS Weekend 2015), and The Chainsmokers (Dreaming Red Rocks) to working on dance performances (GERALDCASELDANCE), interactive installations (Paint the Town Red), and developing VR experiences.

Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Rodolfo Córdova is a composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist. He graduated with a BM in composition from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music and is currently pursuing his MA in composition at Mills College in Oakland, California. He has studied composition under the guidance of Carlos Carrillo, Manuel Ceide, Maggi Payne, and Zeena Parkins. As a singer he has trained under the instruction of countertenor Paul Flight and has participated in vocal advancement workshops with Meredith Monk. His music fuses diverse influences with electronic media, chance operations, gradual processes, noise, and timbral techniques of composition. His work explores intersections with literature and visual arts and engages with issues of colonialism, geopolitics and migration. He has been an active member of ensemble Álea 21 and is a founding member of Conjunto Nueva Disonancia, an ensemble that performs the works of emerging Puerto Rican and international composers.